Category: Surrealism

Dalí’s Greatest Secret (2013) Paul Perry wrote and directed this documentary that focuses on Salvador Dalí’s commission to paint the first vision of Fatima, The Vision of Hell. Conceived by John Hartford of the Blue Army as publicity celebrating the Vatican’s proposed 1961 disclosure of the secret third vision, the painting, over which Dalí … More Dalí’s Greatest Secret (2013)

The Bird People in China (中国の鳥人) (1998) In this dark comedy, a yakuza is sent into the Chinese boondocks to keep track of a junior executive whose bank wants to ascertain if there’s jade to mine. Takashi Miike directs this anthropocentric fable that becomes a quest for an obscure tribe of Chinese people who have … More The Bird People in China

Repo Man (1984) “The life of a Repo Man is always intense,” Harry Dean Stanton [as Bud] tells Emilio Estevez [as Otto], and no more so than when repossessing a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu full of alien bodies from outer space. Alex Cox wrote and directed this punk satire of science fiction and teen … More Repo Man (1984)

Cronos (1993) Guillermo del Toro’s first gothic masterpiece studies the relationship between a grandfather and his granddaughter through a surreal allegory about immortality and the limits of life on earth. Federico Luppi gives a stunning performance as the elderly antiques dealer who discovers a treasure that rejuvenates his blood and turns him younger. But there … More Cronos (1993)

Multiple Maniacs (1970) Not for the squeamish, CRITERION has just released a beautifully reconstructed edition of John Waters’ transgressively offensive home movie, featuring all the freaks he could find in 1969. This is a film created to shock and offend everybody, and still works today. Harris Glenn Milstead cross-dresses as the savagely murderous Divine, … More Multiple Maniacs (1970)

King of Hearts (1966) Alan Bates stars as a Scottish WWI ornithalography specialist mistaken for a munitions expert who is sent into a small provincial French village of Marville to disarm a booby trap rigged by retreating Germans. only to accidentally release inmates from the local mental asylum who assume identities of the absent … More King of Hearts (1966)

Gold (1934) Brigitte Helm speaks! For ten minutes, she vamps in a science fiction film about corporate espionage made during the early Nazi period and directed by Karl Hartl. The ghost of the UFA’s great Metropolis lurks everywhere. John Wills (Michael Bohnen) is the villain, a British billionaire driven by greed to control world … More GOLD (1934)

Agantuk [The Stranger] (1991) Based on his children’s story, “The Guest,” Satyajit Ray directs Utpal Dutt, “known for his decades of work in Bengali theater,” as Manomohan Mitra, who claims to be a long lost uncle, requesting hospitality from a middle class couple in Kolkata. Although skeptical, they let him into their home. This … More Agantuk [The Stranger] (1991)

Green Slime (1968) Director’s Kinji Fukasaku’s pop art interiors and space ships are filled not only with grade-B actors, but also with monsters that reproduce wildly into “an army of rubbery-looking goblins.” Their resemblance to R2-D2 remains uncanny. Ivan Reiner wrote and produced this story about a space station, Gamma 3, infected by these alien … More Green Slime (1968)

Frida (2002) “In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, the country’s artists forged a new painterly vocabulary, which fused European modernism with local folkloric traditions, and became a global phenomenon.” After years of problems getting this screenplay produced, Julie Taymor was hired to direct this biopic based on a biography of Frida Kahlo. Selma Hayek … More Frida (2002)